Libertarian Quotes - Page 27

• It is much more important to kill bad bills than to pass good ones.

  Calvin Coolidge

  Government, Libertarian Party, Important

  Calvin Coolidge (2001). “The Quotable Calvin Coolidge: Sensible Words for a New Century”, Images from the Past Incorporated

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• The aim of public education is not to spread enlightenment at all; it is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed a standard citizenry, to put down dissent and originality.

  H. L. Mencken

  Education, Learning, Liberty

  The American Mercury Magazine, April 24, 1924.

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• Were we directed from Washington when to sow and when to reap, we should soon want bread.

  Thomas Jefferson

  4th Of July, Government, Political

  Thomas Jefferson (1853). “The writings of Thomas Jefferson: being his autobiography, correspondence, reports, messages, addresses, and other writings, official and private”, p.82

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  Most economic fallacies derive from the tendency to assume that there is a fixed pie, that one party can gain only at the expense of another.

  Milton Friedman

  Party, Pie, Liberty

  Milton Friedman, Rose Friedman (1990). “Free to Choose: A Personal Statement”, p.31, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• In our government-controlled schools we are taught that Lincoln was our greatest president because his war ended slavery and saved the Union. As usual, the other side of the story - the side that reflects poorly on the government - somehow gets lost.

  Richard J. Maybury

  War, School, Government

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• Our government, taxes, and ideas of freedom are already duplicates of the Old World. Our politicians determine how we should live our lives - and our individual liberties are sacrificed for the benefit of the Fatherland.

  Harry Browne

  Government, Ideas, Liberty

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• The art of economics consists in looking not merely at the immediate but at the longer effects of any act or policy; it consists in tracing the consequences of that policy not merely for one group but for all groups.

  Henry Hazlitt

  Art, Liberty, Groups

  Henry Hazlitt (2010). “Economics in One Lesson: The Shortest and Surest Way to Understand Basic Economics”, p.13, Crown Business

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• Wherever they burn books they will also, in the end, burn human beings.

  Heinrich Heine

  Reading, Book, Evil

  Almansor: A Tragedy l. 245 (1823)

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• It seems that wherever the Welfare State is involved, the moral precept, "Thou shalt not steal," becomes altered to say: "Thou shalt not steal, except for what thou deemest to be a worthy cause, where thou thinkest that thou canst use the loot for a better purpose than wouldst the victim of the theft."

  F. A. Harper

  Liberty, Purpose, Use

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• Through an unwieldy combination of big government, big military, big business, big labor and big cities, we have created an unworkable mega-nation which defies central management and control. Not only is the United States too big, but it has also become too authoritarian and too undemocratic, and its states assume too little responsibility for the solution of their own social, economic, and political problems.

  Thomas Naylor

  Military, Responsibility, Government

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• Legitimate use of violence can only be that which is required in self-defense.

  Ron Paul

  Self, Defense, Use

  Ron Paul (1987). “Freedom Under Siege”, p.38, Ludwig von Mises Institute

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• All initiation of force is a violation of someone else's rights, whether initiated by an individual or the state, for the benefit of an individual or group of individuals, even if it's supposed to be for the benefit of another individual or group of individuals.

  Ron Paul

  Rights, Benefits, Groups

  Ron Paul (1987). “Freedom Under Siege”, p.38, Ludwig von Mises Institute

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• The most important element of a free society, where individual rights are held in the highest esteem, is the rejection of the initiation of violence.

  Ron Paul

  Rights, Rejection, Historical

  Ron Paul (1987). “Freedom Under Siege”, p.38, Ludwig von Mises Institute

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• The best way to have a good idea is to have a lot of ideas.

  Linus Pauling

  Motivational, Inspiring, Success

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• A lawyer with his briefcase can steal more than a hundred men with guns.

  Mario Puzo

  Funny, Humorous, Gun

  The Godfather ch. 1 (1969). This line does not appear in the movie version of The Godfather.

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• [During the 20th century] ... 170 million men, women, and children have been shot, beaten, tortured, knifed, burned, starved, frozen, crushed, or worked to death; buried alive, drowned, hung, bombed, or killed in any other of the myriad ways governments have inflicted death on unarmed, helpless citizens and foreigners.

  Rudolph Rummel

  Children, Men, Liberty

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• For your own good is a persuasive argument that will eventually make a man agree to his own destruction.

  Janet Frame

  Freedom, Men, Liberty

  Janet Frame (1980). “Faces in the water”

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• You can no more win a war than you can win an earthquake.

  Jeannette Rankin

  Peace, Military, War

  Quoted in Hannah Josephson, Jeannette Rankin: First Lady in Congress (1974)

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• We have the power to do any damn fool thing we want to do, and we seem to do it about every ten minutes.

  J. William Fulbright

  Power, Political, Politics

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• Almost all war making states borrow extensively, raise taxes, and seize the means of combat - including men - from reluctant citizens.

  Charles Tilly

  Money, War, Mean

  Charles Tilly, Arthur L. Stinchcombe (1997). “Roads from Past to Future”, p.149, Rowman & Littlefield

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• The privacy and dignity of our citizens is being whittled away by sometimes imperceptible steps. Taken individually, each step may be of little consequence. But when viewed as a whole, there begins to emerge a society quite unlike any we have seen - a society in which government may intrude into the secret regions of a life.

  William O. Douglas

  Taken, Government, Secret

  "Osborn v. United States, 385 U.S. 323". U.S. Supreme Court case, supreme.justia.com. December 12, 1966.

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• Our new Constitution is now established, and has an appearance that promises permanency; but in the world nothing can be said to be certain except death and taxes.

  Benjamin Franklin

  Death, 4th Of July, Promise

  Letter to Jean Baptiste Le Roy, 13 Nov. 1789

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• The proliferation of bureaucrats and its invariable accompaniment, much heavier tax levies on the productive part of the population, are the recognizable signs, not of a great, but of a decaying society. Historians know that both phenomena were especially marked in the declining eras of the Roman Empire in the West and of its successor state, the Eastern or Byzantine Empire.

  William Henry Chamberlin

  Liberty, Population, Byzantine

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• Politics is the gentle art of getting votes from the poor and campaign funds from the rich, by promising to protect each from the other.

  Oscar Ameringer

  Life, Witty, Art

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• That some should be rich, shows that others may become rich, and, hence, is just encouragement to industry and enterprise.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Motivational, Encouragement, Business

  Abraham Lincoln (2012). “The Complete Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln (Biographically Annotated Edition)”, p.1330, Jazzybee Verlag

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